"I don't understand what people are thinking nowadays," she said. "It's ridiculous. I was minutes away from being in that same area. The airport is in such close proximity to Mandalay Bay and the other casinos."

Burns landed at PHL Monday afternoon, along with dozens of other passengers after departing from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, where flights were immediately halted following the shooting.

"We were on the plane getting ready to push back," said Doug Koenig of Hamburg, Pa. "And then somebody came on and told that pilot, I guess, what was going on. And they said we had to wait because the hotel where it was happening was not too far from the airport, and they didn't want anybody taking off or landing."

Even planes that had already taken off were forced to turn around.

"The plane that had taken off a half hour before us - they made the plane turn around and land even though they were up in the air when the shooting occurred," said Burns.

Most of the passengers learned just how deadly the shooting was upon landing.

"To find out something like that happened is kind of horrifying," said Bobby Cummings of Wilmington, Del. "And we are glad that we were on the plane when this took place."